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India

Kerala - Kovalam

Our last beach stop was at Kovalam, one
of the more touristed beaches in Kerala. Lighthouse beach was, unsurprisingly,
guarded at one end by a big lighthouse, and the constantly rolling waves
gave surfers a chance to try the luck all the way through sunset.

We stayed at the fanciest hotel to
date, an "Ayurvedic Beach Resort" complete with a pool overlooking the
beach. It made for a very pleasant end to our swing through the state,
and the kids loved playing in the water.

While the waves weren't quite as fun as
at Varkala (and the boogie boards cost the same
per
hour here as they had for the entire day at Varkala), we all still
managed to have a great time.

Once again, the whole purpose of our stop
here was to play in the water, and Kovalam did not disappoint.

We saw lots of people working really
hard to keep everything humming at the beach. Of course, being located
near the sea, the big food was sea food, and every day we saw these women
bringing in the daily catch to sell to the hotels and this man bringing
ice to help keep everything cool.

Right outside our hotel, we could see
how these fish were brought in. Every morning a group of fishermen set
out their nets while another set hauled in the ones from the day before.
Because we kept running into fishermen all over Kerala, we figured they
warranted their own fishing page. Check it out here.

And of course, as always, Dad made sure
he did his best at dinnertime to help keep the Kerala fishing industry
afloat (ar, ar, ar)

(of course, mommy and Breck didn't skimp
on dinners either!!)

We enjoyed days strolling down the
beach and splashing in the water, and one afternoon mom and dad climbed
all the way up a dizzying staircase to the top to the lighthouse. It was
a picture-perfect afternoon, and we had a spectacular view of the coastline
heading south (left) and the main beach looking north (right). Our hotel
is right in the middle of the picture on the left, the one that looks sort
of blue and white striped...

When we walked north one afternoon,
we found the next beach over was much more Indian and had a lot fewer foreigners.
There were men repairing their boats in the shadow of the lighthouse, getting
ready for another day on the water.

We ran into a school group that was
apparently on a field trip to the beach. It was pretty funny to watch them
try to play in the water without getting too wet. Of course, the boys were
a lot less inhibited in terms of stripping down to their underwear and
running in (while the girls kept their outfits - scarves and all - on).

But ice cream is the great equalizer,
and as they were heading off, everyone crowded the ice cream man for his
or her fair share...

And we had our fair share of fun in the
sun, too. We snapped a last family photo after breakfast on our last morning,
checked out the fishermen one final time, and
headed off to Trivandrum and Mumbai.